Apsley House

thumb|Apsley House on an 1869 map. The neighbouring houses were demolished in the post [[World War II period to allow Park Lane to be widened. The Wellington Arch has also been repositioned since this time.]]

Apsley House is the London townhouse of the Dukes of Wellington. It stands alone at Hyde Park Corner, on the south-east corner of Hyde Park, facing towards the large traffic roundabout in the centre of which stands the Wellington Arch. It is a Grade I listed building.

Designed by Robert Adam in the neoclassical style, the house was built for Lord Apsley in the 1770s. It was purchased by Richard Wellesley, in 1807, and passed to his younger brother Arthur, the 1st duke, in 1817. It was sometimes referred to as Number One, London. It is perhaps the only preserved example of an English aristocratic townhouse from this period.

The house is also called the Wellington Museum, its official designation under the Wellington Museum Act 1947. Run by English Heritage, much of the house is open to the public as a museum and art gallery, exhibiting the Wellington Collection, a large collection of paintings, other artworks and memorabilia of the career of the 1st Duke. The 9th Duke of Wellington retains an apartment spanning the northern half of the ground floor of the house for the Wellesley family's private use.

The house was originally built in red brick by Robert Adam between 1771 and 1778 for Lord Apsley, the Lord Chancellor, who gave the house its name. Some Adam interiors survive: the Piccadilly Drawing Room with its apsidal end and Adam fireplace, and the Portico Room, behind the giant Corinthian portico added by Wellington.

The house was given the popular nickname of Number One, London, since it was the first house passed by visitors who travelled from the countryside after the toll gates at Knightsbridge. It was originally part of a contiguous line of great houses on Piccadilly, demolished to widen Park Lane: its official address remains 149 Piccadilly, W1J 7NT.

In 1807 the house was purchased by Richard Wellesley, the elder brother of the Arthur Wellesley, but in 1817 financial difficulties forced him to sell it to his famous brother, by then the Duke of Wellington, who needed a London base from which to pursue his new career in politics.

Wellington employed the architect Benjamin Dean Wyatt to carry out renovations in two phases: in the first, begun in 1819, he added a three-storey extension to the north east, housing a State Dining Room, bedrooms and dressing rooms. The scagliola ornamentations, that resemble marble inlays, were produced in Coade stone from the Coade Ornamental Stone Manufactory in Lambeth.

The second phase, started after Wellington had become Prime Minister in 1828, included a new staircase and the "Waterloo Gallery" on the west side of the house. Wyatt's original estimate for the work was £23,000, but the need to repair structural defects discovered during the work led to costs escalating to more than £61,000.

The Waterloo Gallery is named after the Duke's famous victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. The Waterloo Banquet was held annually to commemorate the famous victory of 18 June 1815. The first banquets were held in the Dining Room but in 1828 when Wyatt completed the Waterloo Gallery the banquet was moved there and became a much larger event, seating 74 as opposed to 36 in the dining room. The Duke's equestrian statue can be seen across the busy road, cloaked and watchful, the plinth guarded at each corner by an infantryman. This statue was cast from guns captured at the battle.

Gerald Wellesley, 7th Duke of Wellington, gave the house and its most important contents to the nation in 1947, whilst retaining the right to occupy part of the building. The house was refurbished by the Ministry of Works, with old gas lighting removed and replaced by electricity, and the house was opened as a museum in 1952 as part of the Victoria and Albert Museum. By the 21st century relations between the Wellington family and the museum had deteriorated, and in 2004 responsibility for the house was transferred to English Heritage, although this was not the outcome favoured by the family.

Private apartment

The Wellington Museum Act 1947 (10 & 11 Geo. 6. c. 46) preserves the right of the Wellesley family to retain a private residence within part of Apsley House "so long as there is a Duke of Wellington". This corroborates electrical plans of the House dating from the 1980s, which show the private sections of the house on the northern half of the building's ground floor.

Gallery

File:Apsley House en 1829.JPG|Apsley House in 1829 by Thomas H. Shepherd. The main gateway to Hyde Park can be glimpsed on the left.

File:Apsley House - geograph.org.uk - 2718741.jpg|Apsley House next to the gate

File:View from the Wellington Arch, London (February 2010) 2.jpg|The statue of the Duke of Wellington facing Apsley House. Hyde Park Corner to the left.

File:Apsley House - geograph.org.uk - 287479.jpg|Apsley House at night

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File:Arthur Duke of Wellington.jpg|Portrait of the Duke of Wellington, by Thomas Lawrence (c. 1815–16)

File:Napoleon-Canova-London JBU01.jpg|Antonio Canova's statue of Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker (1806)

File:15 El Aguador de Sevilla (Wellington Museum, Apsley House, Londres, 1623).jpg|Diego Velázquez's Waterseller of Seville (1623)

Private apartment

Gallery

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

External links